Woke Writing
By Elizabeth Huergo | January 23, 2018 |
Flickr Creative Commons: Sandeep Gangadharan
In Theatre of the Oppressed, Augusto Boal takes on the task of stripping theatre to its roots, insisting that “all theater is necessarily political, because all the activities of man are political and theater is one of them.” For Boal, theatre at its most elemental was the “dithyrambic song”–a melody “created by and for the people.” The history of Western theatre reveals a careful, purposeful separation of that song from the landscape within which it was rooted. It was the privileged classes “who decided that some persons will go to the stage and only they will be able to act; the rest will remain seated, receptive, passive—these will be the spectators, the masses, the people.”
Boal, the well-educated son of a baker and a home-maker, was born in Brazil, kidnapped and tortured in 1971 by the military regime that had come to power in 1964 with the help of the United States, and eventually exiled from his homeland for 15 years. He was a dissident and a leftist, but I think of him as a teacher–a writing teacher.
In 2005, about four years before his death, Boal was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez of Democracy Now!. Asked to explain how he developed the “theatre of the oppressed,” he talked about Shakespeare’s “Hamlet,” and the difference between art that mirrors the world, “our vices and virtues,” and art that transforms:
‘I would like to have a mirror with some magic properties in which we could–if we don’t like the image that we have in front of us to allow us to penetrate into that mirror and then transform our image and then come back with our image transformed.’
The act of transforming transforms the actor, he explained. The stage becomes a space within which the usual way of seeing can be suspended and another possibility essayed, tested–the original meaning of the verb to essay. So the theatrical space is akin to the classroom–or at least a writing surface where I can question assumptions safely.
Since the literary text and the dramatic text both develop from a particularly human context, they are both political—reflective of specific ideas about what and who are valuable, or what and who can be rendered “collateral.” Words, Boal insisted to Goodman and Gonzalez, are like trucks: “You can put inside what you want.”
Boal was a friend of Paulo Freire–and by his own admission inspired by him. In fact, Theatre of the Oppressed consciously echoes Freire’s Pedagogy of the Oppressed. Seeing a clear parallel between the stage and the classroom as a transformative space is easy. Much more difficult is the matter of creating and sustaining a space within which students are invited to think critically and question the common rendition of people and events in the world around them. Because no matter how much we insist on the complexity of audience, students generally write to the teacher.
Freire insists that the classroom and the world are “coextensive”; that education presents us all with a stark choice since it can either serve to indoctrinate students, to teach them to conform, or to introduce “the practice of freedom,” the practice of thinking critically and creatively about the world. In a parallel fashion, Boal’s actors present the play, addressing a specific theme. At the end of the play, when no solution seems available, the spectators are invited to become actors and provide alternatives, to think outside the theatrical (and social) box about conditions so often misrepresented as inevitable or insurmountable.
Boal’s technique unmasks the tension between existing social conditions and the representation of those conditions, demonstrating palpably the power of acquiescence, of rendering ourselves inert, spectral before any authority. Boal gets me thinking about the purpose and thrust of the stories I tell as a novelist, the “songs” I set in play on the page.
“What do you want me to write?” writing students often ask me. And I wonder whether perhaps human beings desire being dictated to, whether we find it oddly comforting. “Write what you think,” I respond, thinking of Boal. Some of them look back at me distrustfully. I can’t blame them. We don’t invite students to shift from spectators to actors often enough; and if their education does not help them rehearse safely “the practice of freedom,” of critical thinking, then how can they transform the world? Do we ask students to be passive in class, but to engage in community service? Do we ask them to ingest information passively, but gnash our teeth when they don’t show up at the voting booth?
For Boal the idea of using “the theater as a rehearsal for [the] transformation of reality” did not become “his practice until the dictatorship was every time more severe on us and they started forbidding our plays, not allowing us to do our plays [,] to do nothing.” It was only “when we lost our theater, [and] we lost everything,” that they found the transformative practice.
A light goes on. A student raises her hand.
“You mean writers should be woke?”
“She means we shouldn’t wait to write and ask questions until we have lost the ability to do both,” another student adds.
“Exactly,” I respond.
How would you define “woke writing”? Do you have any favorite examples–classic and contemporary?
[coffee]
Elizabeth Huergo was born in Havana and immigrated to the United States at an early age as a political refugee. A published poet and story writer, she lives in Virginia. The Death of Fidel Perez is her first novel. You can learn more about Elizabeth on her website, and by following her on Twitter.
What a powerful piece, Elizabeth! The first example that comes to mind is of the Holocaust–how systematically European Jews were deprived of their rights until they were silenced completely. The poem “First they came… then they came for me and there was no one left to speak for me.” I think of slavery and the unborn, the gulag and the caste system, genocide upon genocide. Yes, we’ve been given a voice and should exercise it for those who have none. It is my artist’s statement. When I give workshops where many kids have never heard their types of stories, a light goes on for them. They will write their stories. Thanks for this.
Thank you for this challenging essay (or is the phrase “challenging essay” a redundancy, using the root of the word; should all essays challenge us?).
Beyond the danger of passive consumption in the arts, there is the danger of willful inculcation, indoctrination, and the entrenchment of dogma – which can also create and entrench passivity. Before this was practiced for purely political purposes, there were hundreds of years of religious indoctrination in the western world (which I suppose was political enough).
In some respects, coming to writing late in life, I was lucky. I never had the slightest urge to write for a teacher (or anyone else, for that matter – indeed, I initially had no intention of sharing my writing with anyone). And, I must admit, I had my own dogmatic beliefs. Thankfully, allowing my intuition to guide me, I tested, and eventually shattered my own dogma. I suppose proving Didion’s point that, “I don’t know what I think until I write it down.”
Hence, Beginner-Me was definitely a “woke writer.” The mission remains, though, to continue to stay awake. Here’s to the daily challenge. Thanks again for the kick-starting essay.
The driving force has been to show, in a story, that what the world will not allow is, in fact, not only possible but plausible.
It is loosely based on what the world will not allow me, but only as a starting point.
An awful lot of things have to eventually go right for the story to work, and the characters are the ones who have to make it go right: the premise is, of course, very implausible to start with.
So it takes a lot of work and a bit of luck.
After the writer knows this consciously, it must be buried in the entertainment so the reader doesn’t see the underpinnings. But the writer should be awake and aware. This is art, not life. A mirror, not the real thing.
Whether one is “woke” or asleep, the fact is that all writing is political. All writing upholds a set of values. “Value” in turn elevates one thing above another, raises one sub-set of humanity over others.
Writing cannot help but do that. One may not intend that. One may not want that. One may believe that one’s writing is even-handed, complex, apolitical, existential or non-judgmentally post-modern, but that is unlikely. Bias and beliefs are ingrained in us. They’re hard to erase.
Popular literature is steeped in values. We often think that those are traditional values. Mystery fiction = law and order. Romance fiction = love conquers all/marriage is the goal. That, however, is simplistic. As Jennifer Weiner recently wrote in the New York Times, romance fiction can have a subversive and empowering effect:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/20/opinion/sunday/romance-novels-sex-ed.html
Jennifer Weiner: “Reading about it all [the Ansari case], I realize how lucky I am that so much of my sex ed came from Harlequins…They helped make me a feminist.”
If you find that statement peculiar, your bias is showing. Read Jennifer’s piece. You won’t look at bodice-rippers (or boiled eggs) the same way again. Even romance fiction deals in sexual politics.
Striving for apolitical fiction pits oneself against one’s own human nature. It’s better, I believe, to embrace what you believe and to write fiction that enacts the truth of things as you see it. Great literature does that. All fiction can.
Woke? I wonder whether that term has become an easy bromide for a simple idea–being aware of others–that engenders righteous personal feelings but has little active force. I’m not even sure that marching by the hundreds of thousands does much. Monday in Washington: Did anything change? Not that I could see.
Change happens first in minds, then in actions. That’s where fiction comes in. Fiction–your fiction–can uphold values or question them or subvert them. Woke? All writers, like it or not, are using the power of their stories for a purpose–the question is whether that is conscious.
Another way to look at it: Is your story dictating its values to you, or are you subversively introducing new values to others through your story?
I care less whether an author is “woke” and aware of others, and more whether an author is aware of his or her own biases. Is the author questioning and testing his or her own beliefs? Does a novel subvert my own beliefs?
Honestly, I don’t see that much in manuscripts. I wish I saw it more. Then our literature might be truly “woke”.
One thing, Don, regarding marchers. On Saturday, my wife and I marched where we live. Did anything change? I feel there was change in hearts–there was in ours. We felt uplifted. Hopeful. Positive. Connected. Motivated to take part. But those things are invisible. Change you can see in Washington on Monday? The answer is not yet. I think that in society, in fiction, and in readers, internal change leads to external changes, in both people and protagonists. But they don’t happen in a day or two. Hang in there.
I agree with Ray. Decrying the lack of change a day after a march, even a nationwide one, is a bit glib. I can tell you that the energy aroused by those marches is going to fuel a major change in at least one political party, many of whose members feel their leaders got rolled. Women especially saw firsthand through the weekend and yesterday how easily their voices could be sidelined and minimized, and from what I saw on news shows they are none too happy about it, and shouldn’t be. That frustration and anger are part of a gathering sense of political momentum and determiantion. Movements don’t magically happen. They get built. Marches are part that.
Wow. How did I get up on this soapbox?
Ray & David-
Yeah, I know. It’s important to speak up, phone reps, march, all that. It’s a collective spirit. It’s our right and responsibility. It’s part of the dialogue. It steers our nation over time.
Sorry. I’ve been on the streets, but I guess I’m feeling fatigued by a year of wrecking ball to our government, discourse, protective regulations, bench appointments, international esteem, etc. Vast voter disapproval. Disgust in Congress on both sides of the aisle. Yet no change.
I also am burdened by memories of marching in D.C. in the early 1970’s. Hundreds of thousands of us, with (again) no effect on the conduct of the Vietnam War.
I’m not discouraged or giving up, just saying that conjuring the word “woke” is fine enough, but that is in danger of becoming a self-soothing chant. What’s needed is counter-action at state/local levels. Money. Push back. Women running for office.
And counter-narratives. Novels like Red Clocks, The Power, A Book of American Martyrs, The Hate U Give, Day of the Pelican, Sylvia & Aki, and others are hitting our issues head on.
Strong stories. It’s hard to argue with a story’s truth. They’ve changed our society before and are doing so again now. More of those! Write! Write! Write!
And BTW, I should add that I’m grateful for Elizabeth’s post today. Boal’s work is seminal, and I’m so glad she highlights it here. She is empowering her students and us.
So, thanks Elizabeth. Please don’t mind my crankiness. I’m with you.
I gronk your crankiness, and raise you a royally pissed off.
The challenge, I think, is to waken from the political fever-dreams of the day, find the enduring and universal human truths that lie deep within them, and insinuate those truths into a compelling story, so that the reader won’t learn those truths from you, but rather, will discover them for themselves.
All of that is very hard to do. But when it happens, it produces a story that can change people.
I remember buying a collection of short stories by Mark Twain. In the middle of it I came upon was “A Dog’s Tale.” It was a story that I could not unread, a story that changed me, that snuck Twain’s values through my conscious mind and engraved them on my heart.
But the change hurt, and I was not willing to endure it again. I put the book down, unwilling to read more. Later, I gave it away. To this day, I’m reluctant o read Twain.
Call it “woke” if you will, or don’t, it doesn’t matter. For me, it was the most powerful writing I’d ever encountered, or have since. And is there a higher compliment you can pay an author?
I have gone back into my manuscript recently to make sure I am handling my characters in a way that supports their humanity on all levels. I found I could quietly communicate the beauty of diversity with a few small changes. Anything we write has the power of change.
Hi, Elizabeth:
Political messages often speak to spiritual ones, in that both reflect a moral vision (which returns us to Don’s point about values). How are we to treat each other? That question would be appropriate at a dinner table, in a chapel, or in Congress.
I share Don’s conviction that merely being aware isn’t enough. It’s step one. But it is a crucial step and I think minimizing that trivializes a crucial point.
The awakening of “political consciousness” has been abused by totalitarian states as a means of eliminating those who don’t toe the party lie. They need to be “reeducated.” That sadly has poisoned a very simple and undeniable fact–to act well, one must first question the assumptions that provide the ground for one’s actions. Otherwise we can far too easily continue paving the way to hell with our “good” intentions.
Right now, for example, I think any white male who isn’t reflecting deeply on the multiple levels of privilege he enjoys is missing his political moment.
So yes, first we need to become wiser. And then we must act wisely. And as writers we should explore that. I think Don’s remarks about challenging beliefs is part of that reawakening, as is the question: Am I doing enough as a writer to challenge myself, my readers, and the world at large to look at this life differently?
But part of that requires a willingness to forego financial success. Don may disagree with me here. But no one becomes rich by truly, profoundly challenging the status quo, particularly in an economy dedicated to quantity of sales, not quality of the work. If you want to get rich, don’t rock the boat. (And coming up with a new “concept” for an action movie, rom-com, sci-fi epic, etc., ain’t rocking the boat.)
But if you believe in something, don’t betray it. And don’t fall for the old canard, “Follow your heart and success will come.” Allow me to quote William James:
“…the moral flabbiness born of the exclusive worship of the bitch-goddess of success. That — with the squalid cash interpretation put on the word success — is our national disease.”
If you truly follow your heart — and your political convictions — success lies in being true to that vision. The rest is luck, and taking credit for your luck is a sucker’s game.
Elizabeth–It makes sense to think of theater and teaching as the same coinage. As a now-retired teacher, I see your essay as an invitation to train a mirror on myself, as well as my students. Did our encounters indoctrinate, or occasion opportunites for transformation?
The question is loaded with opportunities for self-deception. Within my many limitations, I “think” I did right by my students, in terms of making the study of literature serve to free them of simply accepting received opinions. I viewed literature as the most reliable way to serve the interests of critical thinking, “the practice of freedom.” In their own words, and without being solicited, many of my students said I succeeded in doing this.
But wait–since it’s true that all connections are political, why would my students say anything else? I created topics for discussions or writing assignments. Even when I called on them to create their own topics, I was still in charge. I made judgments about their comments or lack of comments in class. I read their essays and put grades on the papers. Only the most extreme cases of professorial abuse would lead such students to be overtly critical. And after a long career, why would I announce, to myself and others, that I had failed?
I frankly remember too few students who gave clear evidence of being “woke,” or wanting to be. Most wanted marching orders, a clear path to a good grade. Was this because of failings on my part? Could be. But I’m pretty sure I rewarded students’ critical thinking, in both the spoken word and written deed.
How is this related to Boal saying it was only when faced with the most extreme suppression that he came to see the transformative potential of theater? I don’t know. Maybe it really is true that extremes outside the self are necessary for any major shift or discovery.
One thing I’m pretty sure of. Elizabeth Huergo and August Boal write from experiences radically different from mine. That no doubt has sharpened their perceptions. And, necessarily, those experiences also distort perception.
I’ve read that Queen Victoria loved Charles Dickens’ work. She wanted to meet him, and expressed the desire to do so, to which he agreed. But, then she told him he must enter (I think it was Buckingham Palace) through the service door. Dickens refused. In fact, he supposedly sent her a letter stating how disappointed he was with her. Although she loved his work, he felt she didn’t understand it. The social construct benefactor Queen Victoria never got to meet her enlightened fellow traveler on that stage of the journey. I like to think they were reincarnated to conclude the truth of that aspect.
It’s true. Writers for the most part desire to write, because they are woke people. And the act of writing, as we evolve is a lot like Sleeping Beauty’s kiss. And I think there is a story or two in that musing, a feminist one at that….
Thanks for the woke post.
Like Barry, I spent my career as an English teacher striving to create “the practice of freedom,” the practice of thinking critically and creatively about the world.” Success is always a mixed bag, but I do know that my colleagues and I helped a lot of kids learn to craft intellectual arguments, the best of which came from the heart and from a student’s unique vision. I left teaching when it seemed to me that the profession was being smothered by a new orthodoxy.
As to how to be “woke” in writing fiction, I’m not sure. Writing with any kind of agenda sucks the life out of a story, and trumpeting righteousness is also deadening, it seems to me. I have a favorite quote from the author Philip Pullman, who said, “Stories don’t teach us to be good; it isn’t as simple as that. They show us how it feels to be good, or to be bad. They show us people like ourselves doing right things and wrong things, acting bravely or acting meanly, being cruel or being kind, and they leave it up to our own powers of empathy and imagination to make the connection with our own lives. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don’t…The moral teaching comes in gently, and quietly, and little by little, and weighs nothing at all. We hardly know it’s happening. But in this silent and discreet way, with every book we read and love, with every story that makes its way into our heart, we gradually acquire models of behavior and friends we admire and patterns of decency and kindness to follow.”
Forgot to say: Thank you, Elizabeth, for your powerful post that challenges us so effectively.